No One Can Stop Mr. Talking Time's Top 50 32 & 64-Bit Video Games!

[Patrick]

Bushido Blade is a great game. I picked it up years later, I think around 2008, but my roommates and I spent a lot of time playing it. The arenas were a highlight of the game. Most fighting game arenas looked a lot larger than the actual play area. But, in Bushido Blade, you could actually run around and explore a pretty big area. Plus, the one hit injury/death system meant that it was really fast. Timing was much more important than knowing a million combos. It just clicked with me.

 

[Kirin]

I had both these on my list!

Bushido Blade at #10, it's an ingenious twist on the 1-on-1 fighter genre and I played the hell out of it. Like Patrick said, the fact that one hit can kill or disabled means matches are fast-paced and there's no need to study up on 20-hit combo strings. There's a lot of subtlety to it, but it's also pretty quick to pick up and play.Just a really great experience that's pretty much unique - I don't think I've ever played anything else like it. (The sequel is refined in some ways and includes more characters and weapon style to choose from, but unfortunately loses the huge free-roaming interconnected space of fighting arenas that were a big part of the first game's charm and unique feel.)

Parasite Eve I had farther down. Another game with an intriguing atmosphere and story, sort of Die Hard meets Resident Evil, attached to a really unique battle system that lets you target individual body parts with specialized ammo while still running around and positioning yourself in semi-real-time.
(Also there's a Chocobo on the museum building to remind you it's a Square game.)

 

[WildcatJF]

I voted for Bushido Blade as well. Really inventive game well ahead of its time. Would love to see Square-Enix return to the concept now that we have online play where fighters could be much more independent from the camera.

(iirc I think my copy came from you, Patrick lol)

 

[Patrick]

The legend lives on!

 

[Peklo]

Parasite Eve was a vote from me. Genre cross-pollination is a consistent draw for me, and this combined two great loves of mine in single-character RPGs and survival horror (informally maybe three, as "short RPG" isn't really a genre but definitely something I treasure). The latter is veritably a women's genre so the featuring of Aya Brea in the game as the protagonist is multiplicatively significant, as she was the first Squaresoft leading woman in a game as an inarguable protagonist (aside from some pre-FF oddities): not a created character, not an option between her and a male counterpart, not part of an ensemble cast--you had to inhabit her perspective all the way through or there was no story to tell or game to play. She was part of a wave of women leads in that era that were prominent enough that people took notice, and was a subject in some of the first critical games writing I remember reading and paying attention to, about the portrayal of women in video games, written by women (not the first that existed as this had been going on since at least the early '80s, just what I'd been exposed to). Even at like eight or nine years old, I thought that was so cool and remembered it and how it made the game seem like it was important in some way I couldn't articulate at the time. The memory remained in my brain until I got a chance to play the game for myself much later in life, and it colours much of my affection for it still.

 

[Issun]

Parasite Eve was a vote from me. Genre cross-pollination is a consistent draw for me, and this combined two great loves of mine in single-character RPGs and survival horror (informally maybe three, as "short RPG" isn't really a genre but definitely something I treasure). The latter is veritably a women's genre so the featuring of Aya Brea in the game as the protagonist is multiplicatively significant, as she was the first Squaresoft leading woman in a game as an inarguable protagonist (aside from some pre-FF oddities): not a created character, not an option between her and a male counterpart, not part of an ensemble cast--you had to inhabit her perspective all the way through or there was no story to tell or game to play. She was part of a wave of women leads in that era that were prominent enough that people took notice, and was a subject in some of the first critical games writing I remember reading and paying attention to, about the portrayal of women in video games, written by women (not the first that existed as this had been going on since at least the early '80s, just what I'd been exposed to). Even at like eight or nine years old, I thought that was so cool and remembered it and how it made the game seem like it was important in some way I couldn't articulate at the time. The memory remained in my brain until I got a chance to play the game for myself much later in life, and it colours much of my affection for it still.

IIRC the very reason Jeremy Parish slammed 3rd Birthday was because it undermined everything the first two games had established with Aya as a character in favor of male gaze bullshit.

 

[Torzelbaum]

I own DQ7 but I didn't put it on my list. I got past the first part of the game and got to the part where you could class change but my playthrough ran out of steam not long after that.

I do wish the devs had either restrained themselves and not put so much in the game or that they had taken some design cues from contemporary RPGs of the time to streamline the player experience.

 

[Falselogic]

I think I have both the PSX and the 3DS versions of DQ7 and haven't got more than an hour or two into either version...

 

[ShakeWell]

Bushido Blade has aged amazingly. I'm always torn on which I like better, because the 2nd one has two unlockable characters with guns (the first one only has Katze), meaning you can have a gun duel, which is super fun. But the first one, ultimately, tends to get the nod from me, mostly because the controls/fighting systems are a bit more robust, and I like the maps a bit more. I really, really wish someone would make another one, or at least a good spiritual successor.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

It's weird to consider a game that got multiple sequels, a giant ad biltz, and was generally well received and sold well as "underappreciated" but that's where I feel like we are with Parasite Eve. Everything it does is incredible. It's a game that was both so good and also ahead of its time, that it's personally hard to not look back in history and wonder what if this game had received the attention it deserved and became a template for emulation the way other heavy hitters of the era were. I know Parasite Eve II has its proponents, and that it's a good game for what it is. But it actually just makes me angry and sad that a game as fresh and original and interesting as Parasite Eve could only get a sequel by aping Resident Evil.

If I ever won the lottery and could just afford to just retire and do whatever I wanted, a top 3 bucket list item would be to make an indie game in the vein of Parasite Eve, with an almost identical combat system (with some upgrades and modernization of course). Targeting specific body parts; the combo of ATB combat, mixed with action mechanics of having to dodge enemy attacks and make sure your positioning both kept you in range to attack, and out of harms way; the upgrade mechanics for guns and the ammo limitations for each weapon. It was all great stuff. Couple that with the modern setting and a meaningfully diverse cast, and it just felt way ahead of its time and like a window into the incredible future 3D video games could provide.

There is no possible timeline where Bushido Blade would have made my list, but it's a game I respect and admire immensely for trying to both do something outside the box, as well as to meaningfully adapt real life martial arts into a video game format. I don't know if there was ever going to be a future either where its formula would have found it long lasting, franchise-worthy success because it's just an anathema to what a lot of people who are into fighting games look for in their fighting games. But it was certainly a good time and deserves to be on this top-64 list. It's one of the more emblematic games of Squaresoft's Golden Age where they were just throwing the craziest ideas against the wall in order to see which ones would stick.

 

[YangusKhan]

Dragon Quest 7 is an epic and exemplifies this console generation in a way mostly orthogonal to its JRPG contemporaries; rather than using the increased graphical and processing power of the Playstation to pursue more bombastic and cinematic presentations of what an RPG could be, it instead uses the greatly expanded memory size of CD-ROMs to pack the game with a staggering amount of content that's still very much following the Dragon Quest presentation style of its predecessors. I believe it's still to this day the DQ entry with the most towns and vignettes, and that's quite an accomplishment when you've got DQ8 and 11 to compete with. So while the end result is very much a "this isn't for everyone, even by DQ standards," it's an ambitious RPG in a way that its relatively simplistic graphics wouldn't lead you to expect on first impression.

 

[Lokii]

Which isn’t to say it isn’t graphically impressive in its own way. The detail and animation on the monster sprites is a huge step up from what they did in DQ6 and are impressive spritework even among playstation contemporaries. Going from the battles in 6 to 7 is really a startling leap and its easy to see why the 7 template was used as a basis for the 3D style in the DS games.

 

[Issun]

#42

I am a Muay Thai master. You are sucking gravel.

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Platforms: Arcade, Sony Playstation, Sega Saturn, Super Nintendo, PC
Original Release Date: February 27, 1996
88 Points, 3 Votes, Highest Vote: #1 (Yimothy)​

The Street Fighter Alpha series presented themselves as a sort of "prequel" to the mainline SF games, although getting a cohesive timeline out of the series at this point is a fools errand. However, Street Fighter Alpha 2 did two things that set the tone for nearly every fighter since: It emphasized story more than ever before, and it refined the combo system that first appeared in SF2 Turbo and was revamped in Alpha 1 into basically what we now expect from the series. In many ways, Street Fighter Alpha 2 marks a hard line between what Capcom fighters looked like before and what they would look like after. The 2D graphics and animations were gorgeous, with subsequent games, especially the crossover fighters, taking their cues from Alpha 2. However, it is not the most beloved entry in the Alpha series (will that game show up on this list? Only time will tell).

Yimothy said: I'm not even good at Street Fighter, but I love this game. Released in the mid-90s but set in the late 80s, it comes with a built in nostalgic feel that's only increased with age. It's ridiculous to care about the story of Street Fighter, but I'd argue this is one of the few games where it's possible to do so and I got way into it when I was about fourteen and so I cared about the story of Street Fighter. Alpha 3 was a major disappointment as a result.

Selected Track:

 

[Issun]

#41

We are on the verge of a fierce fight to control the universe and decide the fate of the human race.

Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
Platforms: Arcade, Sony Playstation, PC
Release Date: June, 1997
91 Points, 3 Votes, Highest Vote: #2 (pudik)
​

The Darius series may not have the cachet of shooters like Gradius or R-Type, but it is still in the upper echelons of the genre, and any long-time denizen of Talking Time will know how beloved the series is here. Perhaps none so much as G-Darius. It was innovative in its own way, taking the ability to capture enemies from previous installments and adding the ability to absorb them to create crazy powerful lasers in a process known as "beam-dueling", which could straight-up murder some bosses.

But what G-Darius has in spades is audio-visual immersion. The visuals are denser and lusher than most contemporary shooters of the era, and the soundtrack is one of the great works of the medium. Fusing techno, orchestral, choral and ambient tones into a trance-inducing whole. I'd be surprised if the soundtrack wasn't a big part of why this game made it onto this list.

Selected Track:

​

 

[pudik]

let me put the doubt to rest and confirm that G-Darius largely appeared so high on my list because of the soundtrack. It's a total package though. smooth game with great style

 

[WildcatJF]

Oooo I do love G-Darius but I totally was thinking PS2 for it because it's on Taito Legends 2, so that's a missed opportunity on my part.

 

[Daikaiju]

The Alpha series is special to me for introducing Sakura and also my favorite Chun-Li variation.

 

[spines]

i voted for two of the cps2/3 flagship capcom fighters, but not a2. just haven't played it that much, really just a few hours at a hangout day a couple weeks before covid shutdowns, but the music is great and i'm definitely fond of a lot of the cast (from playing ssf4 :/ ). someday i'll understand what a guy combo is

bushido blade is my favorite fighting game (that i can think of) whose title technically abbreviates to "BB". it's an ambitious and very jank game, and there's definitely a world where this concept developed into a really tight and intense competitive game. my experience with it is...definitely kind of tense, but mostly comical. people getting stabbed and living because of the defense modifier on the hammer, or both players gravely impairing each other simultaneously, leaving one rolling away for what feels like minutes as the other tries to kneel-slide toward them. i have conflicting memories about the game as despite owning a copy for quite a while i've only played with other people a couple distinct sessions, long ago at fighting game meetups as a kind of side/gag game, but it's not as full-clown as ehrgeiz or anything.

didn't vote for it.

g-darius, obviously i voted for. i guess all three of us had it top 10? #5 here, with only one game above it that i assume will also make the list. (at #4, and it was really a tossup of which one i wanted to put higher) mechanically i think it's a good shooter, with mechanics that (IMO) are a bit less frustrating than many of its horizontal cousins, though still fairly punishing. obviously the beams are the real standout, and on some level they're more cool factor than a deep mechanic; optimizing them is a necessity for scoring, but as a result i think the high-level scoring is just not something i'm interested in. fortunately even playing for clears or just to see the game is so incredible, due to the game's inimitable style. even the game's sequel doesn't manage to convey the same kinds of scope, surprise, and mystery that G does.

i'd predominantly describe the soundtrack as "industrial", though i can name the exact reasons for this: 1) the first song on the OST is not the intro, but "B・T・DUTCH", the queen fossil (lower stage 2) theme, and it's the most obvious example in the game but definitely a lot of that similar percussion and production carries through the rest. and 2) long ago in a music thunderdome Serephine said something like "if you like 'The Oracle' [Secret of Mana] you'd probably like industrial music", which really opened my eyes to what that term refers to. i remember listening to this soundtrack a ton before that happened and i really had no words for it

though obviously on some level i still kinda don't

 

[Torzelbaum]

The Alpha series is special to me for introducing [...] my favorite Chun-Li variation.

So the one that wears pants?

 

[Peklo]

G was #10 for me; it could've been #1 just as well. It's just one of the peaks of the series, and nothing else eclipses its sense of presentational drama, or everything OGR brings to it as also one of his respective career-defining works. You will see the creation of new lives.

 

[Sarge]

I didn't vote for Alpha 2, but I still find it incredibly impressive that game got ported to the SNES... and that it plays pretty well there.

 

[Torzelbaum]

I didn't vote for Alpha 2, but I still find it incredibly impressive that game got ported to the SNES... and that it plays pretty well there.

Once you get past the forbidden summoning ritual "load time".

 

[Sarge]

Once you get past the forbidden summoning ritual "load time".

Haha, yeah. Interestingly, that's not even due to the S-DD1 chip. It's audio sample data being loaded into the SPC700, and the flaw is apparently correctable as well.

Street Fighter Alpha 2

- Patch - Patch (by gizaha - v.21/Oct/2022*): Code:https://mega.nz/file/5iAyFDQL#3sxJTx0fyNmi7XHyJ-c7OHTqVpbUH0wd4maDLmuoGNo *Changelog is at the bottom of thi

www.zeldix.net

 

[Daikaiju]

So the one that wears pants?

yes

 

[ShakeWell]

Point of order: Were votes (if there were any) for Alpha 2 Gold rolled into this, or was that counted as a separate game?

I could have probably made a full 1/5 of my list Capcom 2D fighters, but I constrained myself to just the one that I spent the most time with and still go back to the most. As for Alpha 2, I love it, though most of my time was spent with the Gold version, and even more time was spent with Alpha 3, which... might be my favorite non-crossover Street Fighter game? It's between that and Street Fighter II Turbo.

As for G-Darius, I didn't vote for it in part because I haven't spent as much time with it as I might like, but also because I like Darius Gaiden more (which I also didn't vote for, but probably should have). I'll be sure to let you all know how much I regret that when my physical edition of Darius Cozmic Revelation shows up and I dig deeper into G and the heretofore not on console Ver.2 update.

 

[Issun]

Point of order: Were votes (if there were any) for Alpha 2 Gold rolled into this, or was that counted as a separate game?

There were no votes for Gold.

Side note to everybody: We're not done with Capcom fighters on this list, so hopefully discussion can mostly be constrained to Alpha 2.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

The Alpha series is special to me for introducing Sakura and also my favorite Chun-Li variation.

Same. Sakura is probably my favorite character, and Alpha 2 is where she got her start. There's just something so incredible about her design where her moveset is specifically engineered to evoke the imagery of "Wants to be like Ryu, but is clumsy/awkward and not quite there yet."

I almost voted Alpha 2 out of pure respect, despite being terrible at fighting games, but with only 25 entries some titles had to get pruned off. The same was also sadly the fate of Puzzle Fighter 2, which should have made my list, but I came to the game late after the gen had ended. But ya, incredible game, probably my favorite Street Fighter, definitely deserving of being on this list.

 

[Issun]

Today's honorable mentions involve two classic Playstation games. One is one of its most well known, and one is less so.

Koudelka: 63 Points, 2 Votes
Koudelka is a gothic horror RPG set in turn-of-the-century (19th-20th) Wales. It involves the usual spooks and haints of the genre, but manages to be a very elegant game as well. Peklo and pudik will elucidate further.

Peklo said: Koudelka was the brainchild of famed Squaresoft composer Hiroki Kikuta who'd grown weary, dissatisfied and constrained in his role in developing RPGs at Square and what the genre had codified into. The foundation of studio Sacnoth was an attempt to innovate in the medium on his own terms, and that's where the genesis of Koudelka as a horror-RPG lies. Of course, the irony here is that even in an altogether new creative context, Kikuta met with internal resistance for his ideas on how to approach a cross-genre work like it, and so RPG conventions such as he may have bristled at still exist in the game for all its iconoclasm, and it's through the push and pull that no one individual could have achieved on their own that the game manages to be so heartbreakingly unique, as the deeply personal creativity meets familiar but warped mechanical underpinnings. It's an RPG of enormous ostensible scale at four discs long, but also of the densest intimacy as the entirety of the game is localized to one night's events at desolate, claustrophobic monastery grounds in Wales. The setting is not accidental or irrelevant to what the game is, as it pulls from occult apocrypha and regional history to fashion its grim tale with, all along minding the ethnic and cultural backgrounds of its central cast, their varying upbringings, privileges, biases and bigotries which are addressed uncompromisingly and honestly. This is a game that must be simply witnessed, as in addition to the plentiful CG cinematics that necessitate the luxurious storage space, the rest of it goes into painstakingly motion-captured and scripted group scenes and fully-voiced conversations that go far beyond the expectations of how interactions in video games should play out and in what tone, for the time or anywhen else. Nothing else is directed like Koudelka, where characters will routinely talk over, interrupt and snap at each other, ranting impassionately or stammering to themselves; every conversation is foremost a group exercise where these kinds of naturalistic and awkward asides are given room to exist in, and the player has the best seats in the house to the theatric drama. It's a short game no matter how it's interacted with, and in its brevity it signaled toward a more creatively daring and self-critical future that did not come to pass, and so it's been rendered all the more special for it.

pudik said: The beauty of early 3d fixed-cam presentation on full display, as all of Koudelka is staged like an art school set dressing, with a great reverence to its various mythological and religious influence. The three main characters play off each other well and fill the already rich atmosphere to completion, but I think it's all unsurprisingly elevated by another classic Kikuta soundtrack.

Tomb Raider: 30 Points, 2 Votes
This game, as well as its protagonist, needs no introduction. Everyone knows Lara Croft in some version. Here's Yimothy to talk about its impact on both him and the medium:

Yimothy said:
Tomb Raider was the first game I bought for my Saturn. It hadn’t been high on the list of games I wanted, but after spending all my paper round money on the console (a few weeks before the price was dropped by 25%, to my dismay), I had to buy second hand and my choices were limited to what the store had. My Dad suggested that the game can’t have been all that good if someone had already sold it on (I don’t remember that argument coming up in second hand bookshops), to which I probably pointed to the sticker on the cover indicating local games magazine Hyper had given it a score of 95% and their “Big rubber stamp of approval”. Dad viewed magazines as an advertising arm of the publishers, so I doubt that carried much weight, but I got the game.

Tomb Raider, for me at least, was in the spirit of Prince of Persia and Flashback, games with stiff but precise controls and environments designed to fit them. Like those games, it was as much about moving through the levels as combat or puzzling. Even the movesets were similar: the player character, Lara Croft, would run by default, but had a walk button that would allow her to approach an edge without stepping over it. She could jump while running, or take a vertical or forwards leap from standing, with the option to grab onto any handholds along the way. Just like in Prince of Persia, you could stand in place jumping up and down near an overhead ledge and Ms Croft would inch forwards with each jump until reaching the right place to grab on. Tomb raider added several more moves to suit the third dimension: sideways and backwards jumps (during each of which Ms Croft would do a flip, a very important point), a forward roll which would reverse the player's facing direction, and a swan dive which had no real purpose beyond looking cool when entering water (Ms Croft would land with a forwards roll if you dove onto land). The transition to 3D in a time before dual analogue sticks was handled with tank controls and a behind the character perspective combined with a look button and the game sometimes assuming control over the camera, such as in the opening cave when it moves down and to the right to show an alternate path above and to the left of the character. Aiming is handled automatically - draw your weapon and Ms Croft will point it at the nearest enemy. With the limited controls available, these choices made sense, and in my view suited the methodical nature of the exploratory gameplay.

This was one of the first games of its type, certainly that I played, and its well thought out controls and level design facilitated my transition from 2D gaming into the third dimension. Even if I did get stuck for ages when I couldn't find an exit from a room because it was directly below the entrance.

 

[Peklo]

There's my #1. The order of my list was arbitrary and malleable, but... yeah, Koudelka's #1, in letter and in spirit. There's nothing else like it, even as a game like Parasite Eve makes for a natural comparison and complement. Just a once-in-a-lifetime work in every respect. The music is definitely worthy of consideration like I neglected and pudik highlighted: like other aspects of the game, it felt like Kikuta re-evaluating what RPGs could musically do. There are only a handful of tracks outside of the cutscene BGM, and the battle themes especially reach for emotive moods the genre doesn't customarily even consider.

 

[Yimothy]

Street Fighter Alpha 2, you guys. I had played various versions of Street Fighter 2 at friends' houses and in video store demo kiosks, but for some reason it was Alpha 2 that really got me. I think this six-page preview in CVG magazine was what got me really interested (continue to the page after for a preview that I'm sure will be relevant later in the list, by the way). I didn't have a copy of that magazine, a friend did, but I borrowed it, photocopied those pages, and coloured them in with pencils. I was probably about twelve, and a massive nerd. I was, and remain, terrible at fighting games, and quickly lost my credit when I eventually came across an arcade machine (and lost it even more quickly the second time, when someone who was at a minimum less terrible put in a coin and wiped the floor with me), but I got the Saturn release and played the heck out of it.

I spent ages this evening trying to record Saturn video before eventually remembering how I've done it in the past. By the time I had it figured out I was ready to move on, so I haven't taken as many clips as I'd intended to.

Street Fighter is often a pretty silly series of games, as seen in the above image of a schoolgirl using a fireball to knock out a massive dude in a men's room, then kicking the air so hard her shoe comes off. Alpha 2 is one of the less silly entries though, and when you're a massive nerd on the verge of your teenage years maybe that's what you want. Unlike many entries in the series, there's no tournament going on. The characters are wandering the world pursuing their various goals. Accordingly there's no set final boss, which allows for more personal narratives for each characters (within the limits imposed by a brief description in the instruction manual, a few lines of dialogue before some of the fights, and a short ending for each). Sagat, for example, is seeking Ryu after being beaten by him in the first Street Fighter, and along the way is challenged by his former student Adon. Ryu is chasing Akuma and is challenged by super-fan Sakura. Sakura, in turn, is looking for Ryu and meets Sagat along the way as he also looks for Ryu. Let's face it, it's all pretty silly. I still like it.

As some others on the board have mentioned, this was the first game with Sakura. As a young kid playing Street Fighter games and pretending to throw fireballs and do dragon punches (usually in the pool, where gravity was less of an issue), I found the idea of a kid who's such a fan of street fighting that she manages to develop her own style based on Ryu's, including throwing fireballs, very appealing. The above throw, where she kicks off from the opponent's face, was the kind of thing I thought made sense as a cool fighting move. As an adult I am less comfortable with the number of Sakura's moves where her underwear can be seen, something which was probably aimed directly at pre/early-teen me. That's skeevy and there's no getting around it.

Less bad is the dude in the background of her stage playing video games. When she loses he throws his controller down in disgust.

I put this at number one, despite the many Street Fighters that have come since, because this was the one that got me when I was young. Pleasantly surprised to see it make the list. Also surprised that Tomb Raider didn't.